YEP Letters: June 26

The article about the Leeds bar stones prompted a few puzzled comments.

Firstly, the North Bar stone has been back on public view for about a year; Leeds City Plans Panel members insisted that it should be kept by developers, if it was still there.

When a wooden shopfront was taken down it proved to be exactly where I had forecast, more than 40 years after last seeing it, though the sheet of glass fixed by the West Yorkshire bus company as a shield from road-salt had gone.

Originally the West Bar stone stood near the corner of Basinghall Street and Boar Lane; the length of what is now Boar Lane from Mill Hill to Park Row was called West Bar.

The stone nearest the St John’s Centre was Woodhouse Bar, on the part of Woodhouse Lane now covered by Dortmund Square. Until about 1970 the South Bar stone stood at the corner of Great Wilson Street and Junction Street, near Crown Point retail park, not by Leeds Bridge; it disappeared during demolition and road-widening.

Apparently the bar-stones had a use until 1840 when the pre-paid penny post came in; before then, post was paid for by those who received it; deliveries to addresses beyond the bars cost more. It’s not clear from the YEP article which stone Leeds Civic Trust are marking, or where!

Another point that should be made is that the Bank of England built on King Street in 1971 is faced mostly with finely-polished Cornish granite, not concrete as claimed in the YEP some months ago when it was made a listed building.

Only the Buchanan-scheme aerial walkways fastened to the King Street and Park Place facades are concrete; it would be interesting to find out whether the building was made so that they could be taken off without leaving obvious scars. Overall it isn’t quite the cheap and nasty brutalist monstrosity that it is sometimes made out to be.

Is accuracy still important?

Margaret Thompson, Leeds 16

It is rather alarming to read of perceived mistakes in the figures produced by Leeds City Council employees in support of the draft site allocations plan, for new housing in our city.

These are the professionals who are employed on our behalf. If indeed the figures are incorrect surely someone should be held to account?

We had the same scenario during the public inquiry into the trolleybus scheme -time and again “facts” were stated which on further examination were found to be incorrect-and yet no heads seem to fall -is accuracy no longer important?

Why do we have to pay?

Terry Watson, Adel

Why do we , the British taxpayers have to pay £16,000 a week for protection of Tony Blair?

Most of the problems we have today in our once great country were caused by the Blair government. We are overrun by immigrants and bogus asylum seekers because of the ludicrous open borders policy “keep me popular Tony” signed up to.

No thought was given to the destruction of our education system, the National Health Service and the ridiculously over generous benefits which New Labour created to win more votes and keep them in power at all costs.

The Prime Minister who lied to Parliament over the illegal war in Iraq and has still not been prosecuted, and no doubt will come out unscathed when the Chilcott enquiry finally comes to a conclusion.

The war in Iraq which cost us dearly, 179 members of our armed forces , so pathetically equipped,and 100,000 Iraqi civilians, achieved nothing. In fact many say the two wars, Iraq and Afghanistan are responsible for the worldwide terrorism taking place today.

So now the most disastrous PM in history, after costing us billions which we will be paying off for years, travels the world visiting five countries a week protected by eight policemen paid for by the taxpayers.

This is the man who is a multi-millionaire and should pay for his own security. Get a grip Cameron and put stop to this scandalous waste.

Pavement cyclists danger

Ivan Kovacs, by email

Myself and others have raised the issue of cyclists on pavements before and it is bad that the only time we write is to express negative views, but here we go again.

This time it is the bad response of police staff to this subject that does not help the situation.

I was parked at the side of the road this morning and noticed two PCSOs walking along a narrowish footpath, with grass on either side of it.

Behind them was a cyclist, who came up fast on the pavement, saw them and slowed down to walking pace and kept up with them only a few metres behind.

The two officers clearly must have been aware of the cyclist but took no action, in the few minutes it took for them to get level with me.

When they did I wound down the window and talked to them and asked if they were going to do anything about the cyclist (PCSOs have the power to ticket offending cyclists). The woman who talked to me said they would.

However, the officers made no attempt to call to the cyclist and as I watched them walk along the path, now behind the biker, they continued chatting to each other and eventually the cyclist sped up and by the time he was out of my sight was well over a hundred metres in front of the officers and in that time they made no effort to attract his attention or make notes. situation.

It is no wonder that offending cyclists do not fear the police and that law abiding members of the public have reduced confidence in them if they get no action.

What is the use of these officers if they fail to do their job?

Not many law abiding drivers

Paul Hatfield, Otley

Middle lane hogging - one prosecution. Yet another law which will not be enforced because there is no-one to do so.

Speeding, using mobiles and lane hogging will go on ad infinitum much to the law abiders’ frustration.

Not that there are many law abiding drivers about from what I have witnessed recently!